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The Madeleine McCann Disappearance

Yes - it's the constant revision of stories to make the McCanns' tale more plausible that I find odd. For example, I am sure initial reports didn't mention that the apartment was unlocked but instead talked about forced entry via a window. It then turned out that the window had not been forced but may have been opened from inside - the McCanns then remember they hadn't bothered to lock a ground floor apartment, despite the fact that three very young children were sleeping alone inside.

Next, after a fortnight of deliberation, the McCanns or their advisers suddenly recall that their hire car was not only full of dirty nappies (explaining the "fluids" found in there) but was being used to carry around rotting meat (hence the excitement of the cadaver dogs).

Now the previous "fact" that Madeleine was at a creche until 6pm on the night of her disappearance seems under review and Gerry McCann has a revelation that the supposed abductor was in the apartment while he was checking on his children.

I mean honestly. Give me a break.

I have no idea whether the McCanns were responsible for their daughter's disappearance and presumed death, but they are not doing themselves any favours by constantly chopping and changing their story.

Edited as I had typed "outside" when I meant "inside"
 
A door was ajar, which at the time he thought had been opened by Madeleine herself, but which he now thinks may have had someone hiding behind.
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Doesn't that one only work in movies? :?
 
I am expecting to hear other friends of the McCann's recalling how he returned to the restaurant and mentioned the toes of a pair of exotic men's loafers peeping out from under the curtains but thought nothing about it.

Surely ALL of these stories can't be right as they seem to be contradicting each other and other witness reports.
 
Ravenstone said:
we hear that the 'checking on' didn't involve actually going in to the (unlocked, apparently) apartment, but listening at the door.
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You're kidding. Surely a dead kid and a sleeping kid would sound the same from a doorway? When I'm babysitting my godson I have to hover over him like a nightmare in order to hear if he's breathing or not. I don't envy the poor tyke if he ever wakes up while I'm doing it :shock:
 
LaurenChurchill said:
Ravenstone said:
we hear that the 'checking on' didn't involve actually going in to the (unlocked, apparently) apartment, but listening at the door.
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You're kidding. Surely a dead kid and a sleeping kid would sound the same from a doorway? When I'm babysitting my godson I have to hover over him like a nightmare in order to hear if he's breathing or not. I don't envy the poor tyke if he ever wakes up while I'm doing it :shock:
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They're doctors; they have a different set of rules and obviously know more about a child's welfare than any of us.
 
Yes. They can check a sleeping child's heartbeat from a dinner table across the street without even getting a stethoscope out.
 
escargot1 said:
Yes. They can check a sleeping child's heartbeat from a dinner table across the street without even getting a stethoscope out.
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Exactly. All this treating them like their some kind of gods seems to be a fairly new invention, but the press generally fawn over anyone in the medical profession. Back in the Good Old Days of Victorian Values, so beloved of politicians, most doctors were murderous, greed-driven psychos, racking up gambling debts and murdering people for the insurance money. Catch a Victorian paparazz trusting any doctor....

But, yes, apparently they didn't actually enter the room to check on the children; they just put their ear to the door.

The story changes with alarming frequency. Mind you, how much of that is press, I don't know. Either way, one ends up with the Shakespearean notion of "the lady doth protest too much, methinks"....
 
Sky TV News shows the picture in full, with the person carrying the child being part of a group who are all carrying 'luggage', as they put it.

Picture of blonde girl in Morocco is new twist in Madeleine case

Speculation over the Madeleine McCann case was given new impetus last night after the emergence of a photograph taken in Morocco showing a small blonde girl bearing a resemblance to the missing four-year-old.
The picture, of a girl being carried in a sling on a woman's back, was taken just over three weeks ago in Zinat, in the north of the country, by a Spanish holidaymaker. It has been passed to experts working on the investigation.
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I think the child's face looks too broad to be Madeleine's. Wouldn't it be great, though... :(
 
Wouldn't it be great, though...
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It really, really would. :)

Of course, if the PR team the McCanns hired doesn't now advise them to fly out to Morrocco pronto, questions may be asked.

After all, they were happy to fly out to the Vatican, and Gerry McCann was popping up in America & the Edinburgh film festival. Surely Morrocco isn't too far to go....?
 
Blonde Girl Photo: Could It Be Maddie?

Horse Seen In Field: Is It Shergar?

Random Man With Moustache Photographed: Looks a Bit Like Lord Lucan If You Squint
 
And this just in, which I am sure comes as no surprise whatsoever to anyone...

Pictured girl 'is not Madeleine'

A blonde girl photographed in Morocco is not missing Madeleine McCann, according to journalists who met her.

British and Spanish reporters claim to have traced the girl, pictured being carried on a Moroccan woman's back.

London's Evening Standard newspaper says the girl is a five-year-old from the village of Zinat.

The McCanns' spokesman said the news, if true, was disappointing. Madeleine disappeared on 3 May from a holiday apartment in Portugal.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7014886.stm
 
And still the stories come in...

Madeleine: Boatman spotted 'kicking something in the middle of the night'
by VANESSA ALLEN
Last updated at 10:35am on 29th September 2007

Nanny Charlotte Pennington says she saw a man in a boat kicking something shortly after Madeleine disappeared
•Portuguese papers claim Kate McCann killed Madeleine while Gerry played tennis
•Couple 'then hid the child's body in a fridge and later disposed of it in Spain'
•British tourist seen 'hidding' in a stairwell outside the McCann's appartment

A mystery boatman was seen kicking at something in the middle of the night two days after Madeleine McCann disappeared, detectives have been told.

Former Mark Warner nanny Charlotte Pennington said she spotted the man in a small dinghy just off the Praia da Luz seafront at 11.30pm. She claims he was kicking at an object stored in the boat's hull.

When she moved closer to investigate, the man - whose name she has given to Portuguese and British police - stooped out of sight then hurriedly rowed away.

Portuguese police are taking the sightings seriously and Miss Pennington, 20, has twice spoken to Leicestershire detectives about her evidence.

She was working in the Ocean Club's creche on May 3, the night Madeleine disappeared. She is the only person to have given a full, public description of the events of that evening.

She told police how she heard Kate McCann scream: "They've taken her" on the night of May 3, when Madeleine vanished, and that she saw the first official suspect Robert Murat standing outside the Ocean Club that night.

Yesterday Miss Pennington said the man was wearing a reflective yellow jacket with a hood but she could not make out his face.

However the following day she was shocked to see a man - whom she had come to know over the preceding week - wearing exactly the same distinctive jacket as the man in the boat.

Miss Pennington's account potentially tallies with repeated suggestions that Madeleine was smuggled out of the Algarve on board a boat, or that her body was dumped at sea.

Reports today meanwhile suggest a british tourist seen 'hidding' in a stairwell outside the McCann's appartment the night Madeleine went missing is being investigated by police.

An employee at the Ocean Club resort spotted the stocky man in glasses just twelve metres from the flat. The worker told the Daily Mirror: "It was around 6pm on the day the little girl went missing.

"I saw this Englishman standing under the stairwell.

"He was round-faced and stocky, wearing light clothes and positioned so that he was monitoring the car park area, stairs and elevator. He was hiding and watching what was going on. I didn't see him at first. I was collecting some linen, bent down to pick it up and nearly bumped into him.

"We gave each other a big fright and both jumped back. We moved aside for each other. But he didn't move away."

The witness was later interviewed by police, who said they seemed uninterested in his story, but later detectives re-interviewed him. The worker was shown a series of pictures and he pointed out who he thought the person was.

Police are understood to be investigating his claims further.

http://tinyurl.com/2dz5rw

(And this same worker told his story 'exclusively' to the Mirror! :roll:
http://tinyurl.com/3cje6b )
 
My god, a fisherman was seen kicking something at night? Obviously the only logical conclusion is he must have been kicking the dead body of a little girl.
 
In a yellow hooded jacket, which no seafarer ever wears. Completely distinctive - a conclusive identification.
 
I always find it strange when people emerge months after an event to announce that, after all, they have a crucial piece of information. Didn't they think to say something at the time? I'm afraid as a result I find it difficult to take these reports very seriously.
 
escargot1 said:
In a yellow hooded jacket, which no seafarer ever wears. Completely distinctive - a conclusive identification.
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Well, I don't know about Portugal, but many UK fishermen do wear yellow oilies, made by a French company. Guy Cotten. (We sell 'em, where I work.)

And a lot of these reports were made just after the event - it seems that (because of the Portuguese police rulings on secrecy) the news of these reports is only just leaking out.
 
Maddie 'kidnapped by maid', says email
By Sadie Gray
Published: 30 September 2007

Madeleine McCann may have been kidnapped by a disgruntled maid in revenge for her sacking by the Praia da Luz resort where the three-year-old disappeared 150 days ago, according to a tip-off received by British police.

An anonymous informant named the ex-employee in a detailed email sent to Prince Charles's official website, claiming she acted out of bitterness towards the resort's operator, Mark Warner Ocean Club, said the News of the World.

British police called the email "significant", and said the details they had been able to check had proved to be correct. Now Leicestershire Police are trying to trace the writer, and have passed the information to Portuguese detectives.

The McCanns' spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, said they were "encouraged" by the development.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/ ... 013145.ece
 
rynner said:
An anonymous informant named the ex-employee in a detailed email sent to Prince Charles's official website, claiming she acted out of bitterness towards the resort's operator, Mark Warner Ocean Club, said the News of the World.
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Why send the e-mail to Charlie Boy? Is he Batman or something??
 
hotels have frighteningly high staff turnover rates, mainly because the pay's poor and they treat their staff like shite... there's probably a whole bunch of 'disgruntled' former employees out there... but what does it prove?

imo someone's either got it in for the maid, or is just plain trying to stir the pot for kicks...
 
BlackRiverFalls said:
hotels have frighteningly high staff turnover rates, mainly because the pay's poor and they treat their staff like shite... there's probably a whole bunch of 'disgruntled' former employees out there... but what does it prove?

imo someone's either got it in for the maid, or is just plain trying to stir the pot for kicks...
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Nonetheless, I'm "encouraged" that there's been yet another lead.

How many people were at that resort? How long before it's their turn to be accused? Use the Laws of Probability to work out your answer. :roll:
 
FWIW, I personally think a local, and very likely a resort employee, has abducted Madeleine. He (I do think it's a man, because it's more likely to be a sex offence than anything else, although the 'grudge' idea is interesting too) may have been watching that particular apartment for a while, hoping that a suitable victim would come to stay.

The apartment is on a corner and seems easily accessible, and the various families who occupied it over the last months/years may have been in the same habit of leaving children alone at night as were the McCanns and many other holidaymakers.

If the McCanns hadn't left the kids alone, the next family might've been 'suitable', or the next, or the one after that.

If all this is the case, then it was only a matter of time until a child was taken at night when the parents were out.
 
FWIW, I personally think a local, and very likely a resort employee, has abducted Madeleine.
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We'll see. Or, perhaps we won't.

I do not know what has happened to Madeleine but I do find the timing of this latest lot of reports - coming as it does very shortly after the McCanns have appointed a spokesman to spin to the media on their behalf - a little co-incidental.
 
Not to mention that we have yet to see a name attached to all these reports. With an anonymous source, any idiot journalist could have been making it up.
 
Too tidy escargot.

I like the disgruntled employee theory, but otherwise it doesnt make sense
 
The child molester abduction scenario is the simplest. A predatory paedophile taking advantage of the parents' lowered guard - hell, they were on holiday - what could be more obvious?

I hope everyone, including myself, who thinks the child is dead, is wrong, but I'm not holding my breath. :(
 
Nope, your wrong there

the simplest is the family.

But this isnt a simple case so I think both theries can be discounted
 
the simplest is the family.
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Yes - abductions by predatory paedophiles, especially abductions which involve entering a dwelling, are vanishingly rare.

The killing of a child by its parents is, unfortunately, depressingly common.

That doesn't mean that is what necessarily happened here. However, I have from the start found the parents' behaviour really quite odd and some aspects of the story - notably, the claim that the apartment had been left unlocked - seem to have been added after the parents' original story was queried.

The fact that they have felt the need to appoint a communications specialist to deal with the media, and that his appointment has coincided with increasingly unlikely tales of alternative scenarios, witnesses suddenly appearing out of nowhere, etc etc, adds to my misgivings TBH.
 
My mind is open though. While I feel that the McCanns were wrong (in the sense of asking for trouble) to leave the children alone, that doesn't make them murderers.

Plus, they had no opportunity to dispose of a rapidly-decomposing corpse in the time after the disappearance as their every move was followed by the press. They have invited publicity at every stage -very dangerous behaviour for people trying to keep such a secret,

While it is true that most murdered children have been killed by their parents, guardians or step parents, not all are. A few, a very few, are abducted and killed by strangers, and this appears to have happened here.

I'm not dogmatic about this - I will be happy to eat my words if necessary.

Until we hear something new, though, there's no point in discussing it, so I'm off to teh fluffeh kitteh site.
 
This just gets more surreal. Scarcely a day goes by without a new sighting, a new witness, or a new theory. It can only be a matter of time before space aliens are blamed...

Madeleine McCann 'died after fall down steps'
By Caroline Gammell in Praia da Luz
Last Updated: 1:56am BST 01/10/2007

Portuguese police believe Madeleine McCann died after falling down a flight of steps and that her parents panicked, hiding her body because they feared being blamed, it was claimed yesterday.

It was alleged that the four-year-old smashed the back of her head on a ceramic flagstone at her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz.

Fearing they would be charged with manslaughter, Kate and Gerry McCann then got rid of the body, possibly with the help of their friends, it was alleged.

The latest theory against the couple, who are official suspects in their daughter's disappearance, was dismissed as "ludicrous and unsubstantiated" by their spokesman.

It emerged as a source close to the McCanns said police were investigating claims that a disgruntled ex-employee from the Ocean Club, where the family was staying, may have been involved in Madeleine's abduction.

Mrs McCann has said she would be willing to risk going to prison by speaking out about the events of May 3 in breach of Portugal's secrecy laws. As suspects, or arguidos, the couple are prevented from speaking about the investigation, and have expressed frustration that they are not able to defend themselves against increasingly lurid allegations regarding their daughter's fate.

Despite the ban, they are in talks with chat-show hosts in the US in an attempt to remind people Madeleine is missing.

Yesterday, the McCanns spent a quiet day in their home town of Rothley in Leicestershire, marking 150 days since their daughter disappeared.

They are adamant that she was abducted but police in Portugal were described as "100 per cent" certain that the little girl died in the family's apartment in the Algarve.

A senior detective told Portuguese newspaper 24 Horas: "The only thing to investigate is how the body disappeared." The newspaper claims Madeleine fell down steps at the back of the apartment. Photographs taken at the time show a children's safety barrier above the steps.

The new theory emerged after a report from Britain said specialist sniffer dogs had detected the "smell of death" on the steps, it was claimed. In the past, Mr and Mrs McCann, both 39, have been accused of hiding their daughter's body because she had been sedated.

But yesterday, a source close to the couple hit back at the allegations.

"Where is the proof that this happened? Madeleine was put to bed at 7pm and there was a witness. When is Madeleine supposed to have fallen?

"If the police are 100 per cent certain that Madeleine fell down some steps, that means they must be able to prove she died in that way. It's just not possible without a body."

The couple's spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, added: "It is just ludicrous. All of these reports are unsourced and unsubstantiated."

A tip-off claiming that a former Ocean Club employee was involved in Madeleine's disappearance was sent to the Prince of Wales's official website, and passed to police.

It alleged that a maid who used to work at the Mark Warner resort kidnapped Madeleine in revenge for being fired. Police have discovered the woman identified does exist and that the tip-off came from an email address registered in the Iberian peninsula.

http://tinyurl.com/35scop
 
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